The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
by My Sharpie Is Green
Summary: Three nights in four years document the affect of Voldemort's reign on Sirius and Remus' relationship. SBRL [SLASH][ONESHOT]


Don't own HP. Inspired by Postal Service song of the same name. BTW, do Remus and Sirius remind you guys of an Ennis/Jack (BBM) relationship, or is it just me who imagines them that way?

**.x. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight .x.**

His bed seemed cold without the comfort of Sirius' body beside his own, retaining heat and placating him with the sound of his slowing heartbeat. It had been a week since Remus had returned from Hogwarts, yet he had still not grown used to being alone at night. His days seemed empty without Padfoot's presence, balancing out Remus' serious nature with his playful disposition. On the wall opposite his bed hung a countdown to September the first. He sighed—time inched by, and the day would not come soon enough. He had had no owls, no contact at all from the wizarding world, even though the wizarding world was not what he wanted to hear from. He didn't give a damn if he heard from anyone else, he just wanted some word from Sirius before he boarded the Hogwarts Express for the last time.

Remus tossed and turned a bit, finding a comfortable position on his side. Nights like this stretched out across seemingly infinite spans of time, and, as usual, his mind began to wander. He could feel the ghost of Sirius' lips planting a soft, tender trail across his collarbone and bare chest, and he groaned slightly. Those thoughts were the worst. They made him yearn for Sirius and their nights spent together in any location they could find even more. He fidgeted a bit as he tried to distract himself, but he was powerless. Rich images of the last time they had been together flooded him. He closed his eyes, imagining Sirius with him, beside him, above him. The shadow of his moving hips flickered in his minds eye, taunting him. Remus remembered how it was on the nights that dog and wolf let their animalistic urges come to full realization. He recalled the feeling of Sirius' fingertips grazing his chest, the desperation of their kisses, and the strong scent that followed the final thrust.

Remus' heartbeat quickened. He wanted to go back to Hogwarts, where he and Sirius could be together again, but, at the same time, he wished that he could stop. Pull away. He flipped over onto his stomach and buried his head in his pillow. He couldn't give into these cravings. What the two Mauraders did was sinful; he had to break away somehow. But how could he regret those nights spent together? That amazing time… A moan barely escaped his lips as he thought of the way those long nights they had spent fitting together likes pieces of a jigsaw had felt…

As the night passed on, Remus was occupied with thoughts of longing. When he finally drifted off to sleep in the early hours of the morning, he couldn't know the way his nights at Hogwarts would be spent.

**.xx.**

"A sheet of parchment is going to be passed around. None of you are being forced to sign it. Only write your name down if you wish to fight for what this meeting has been spent discussing. This sheet is a declaration of your allegiance—to Dumbledore, to the Order…and to every individual whose life has been affected by Lord Voldemort in some way." Everyone in the room let out a collective shudder—apart from Sirius and Remus—as James Potter uttered the name of the powerful Dark Lord. A handful of seventh years sat on cushions in the Room of Requirement, a single candle illuminating their secretive meeting. "I'll go first."

As James wrote his name with a flourish, Remus looked at his friend. His mischievous side had taken a back seat for once; for hours, his serious nature had prevailed over the meeting. As the room became silent again, the only sound being the ruffling of parchment and the scratching of quills, Remus looked across the room at Sirius. He was flexing his fingers disinterestedly, his eyes distanced despite the fact that Remus knew Sirius had pressed for this meeting harder than anyone. He shifted a bit, looking around at the motley assortment of students, ranging from strong to scrawny, genius to brainless, and valiant to cowardly. He knew that few of them would truly join the Order of the Phoenix—most of them had just wanted to hear what James had to say. And while the pressing matter of Voldemort's rise to power concerned him, at the moment his thoughts were occupied by the fact that Sirius had been carefully avoiding him these past few months. At first, Remus had assumed that Sirius was simply busy, but it soon became clear that this was not the case. The more persistent Remus became, the more elusive Sirius set out to be. His eyes fell on James, who was crouching next to Lily. It was her turn to make the most influential decision any of us would make this year.

"Lils, you don't have to, you know," he said quietly in her ear. She looked brazenly at him with those deep green eyes.

"I know."

And she signed her name without a second thought. When the list came into his hands (he was the last person to sign), he looked at the small group of names on it. While he didn't blame anyone who wasn't joining, he suddenly saw the few who were in a new light. They were heroes.

A few minutes and another short, inspirational speech by James later, Sirius and Remus were alone. "Sirius?"

He made a grunting noise Remus took as meaning "what".

"I need to…" he paused, searching for the right word, "talk."

Sirius turned his head. "Remus, come on, this is a serious time. I'm being serious right now."

"So am I!"

"What?" he snapped.

"Why have you been avoiding me?"

"I told you, I've been busy."

"You haven't been too busy to spend time with James. You haven't been too busy to flirt with other girls. But you've been too busy to say one word to me in two months? That's bullshit, Sirius, and we both know it."

"Listen, okay? I've got other things on my mind, things that don't have anything to do with you. Voldemort's gaining power, Remus. And nutjobs like my family are supporting him. So I apologize if I haven't got time to sleep around!"

Remus glared. "We don't just 'sleep around'!"

"Then what do we do, Remus? Because we don't do anything else."

"You won't let us! You think we'll be lynched if someone sees us, or something."

"You don't know how people react to sodomy."

"And you don't know how people react to being told they don't mean anything."

"Remus—"

"What?"

"Just…this thing with Voldemort…it means something more to me than saving the world, Remus. I just think that there are better things to be putting our energy into than shagging. Can you understand that?"

He looked at his friend, his lover: he saw the bags under his eyes and the weary look on his face.

"I can."

Sirius barely smiled. "I won't make it back to the dorms tonight, so go ahead without me."

Remus looked at Padfoot one more time before exiting the room, making his way towards another night alone.

**.xx.**

Remus was going to have to get used to being on his own. He sat there at night, mourning the loss of the four people he had cared most about. James. Lily. Peter. The hardest to lose of all, however, was Sirius, whom was to blame for the rest of his despair. _His_ Sirius. Sirius Black. Padfoot. Maurader. Practical joker. Rat. **Murderer**.

For once in his life, Remus couldn't even think straight. His past days had been a downward spiral, one that included a now-empty bottle of Jack Daniels' and a pack of cigarettes he had smoked with a shaking hand as he coughed and sputtered. Every friend he had ever had was gone in the blink of an eye. All it had taken was a couple days for everything he had held onto so dearly to be torn out of his grasp…it was hard to imagine that things could happen that way, but for Remus the events of the past week were all too vividly real. If he had ever thought things had hurt before… Suffice it to say he had been out of his mind.

Sighing wearily, he reached over and pulled on the small chain attached to the lamp; it turned off with a click and fell back onto the bed…the same bed that he and Sirius had shared for many nights. He knew he wouldn't sleep that night, not with the emotional scars still so fresh and deep… As he lay there, he could see Sirius in his mind's eye, relaxing casually against the wall of the Room of Requirement.

"_This sheet is a declaration of your allegiance—to Dumbledore, to the Order…and to every individual whose life has been affected by Lord Voldemort in some way."_

For the first time, Remus wondered if Sirius still claimed allegiance to him.


End file.
